Putting out Fire with Gasoline
In 2007 I was fortunate so see Grindhouse in a seedy Chicago cinema. Unsuccessful in its US release, the three hour collaboration between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino was subsequently chopped into two releases, Planet Terror and Death Proof. Rodriguez’s insane zombie film and Tarantino’s chase movie received muted responses, stripped from the tongue in cheek Grindhouse concept, which offered a 70s movie feast complete with fake trailers for badly made films and even dummy adverts, the joke appeared to be lost on most audiences. Since then the two directors have followed entirely different paths, Rodriguez continuing in Spy Kids mode and directing a family film Shorts and Tarantino staying with familiar territory to deliver possibly his best work to date, the World War 2 drama Inglourious Basterds.
Inglourious Basterds exceeded my expectations, which were namely of a film featuring Brad Pitt leading a no nonsense troop of Nazi hunters in occupied France. This is of course part of the film, but like most of Tarantino’s best work, we are treated to an episodic feast and the best scenes, which consist of three of the director’s finest, do not feature Pitt at all. In many ways the band of Nazi hunters appears to belong in a different film, perhaps the Inglourious Basterds that Tarantino had planned for so long and put on hold, the one originally set to star Michael Madsen and Tim Roth that would have resulted in a different, and perhaps lesser, experience.
Christoph Waltz won best supporting Oscar for his role as Colonel Hans Landa, a role Leonardo DiCaprio was originally considered for. Waltz is so good that it’s almost impossible to imagine any other actor in the part, his two key scenes are the tensest on camera I have seen for some time. The film opens in rural France, where Landa descends on a family rumoured to be harbouring Jews. I think it is the best piece of cinema that Tarantino has made to date. We’re never sure where the scene is going, and the uncertainly lasts right up until its violent conclusion. Waltz portrays Landa with the right combination of confident authority and false obsequiousness; we never know just when he’s going to drop the facade and reveal the monster he surely is. His second scene, where he eats dessert with the girl he allowed to escape from his clutches, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), is equally gripping. I will never look at strudel again in the same light.
Inglourious Basterds contains the usual cross-references, odd themes and apparently deliberate mistakes you’d expect from Tarantino. It’s a film that invites multiple viewing just to understand some of its resonance (some things are just subtle touches like Landa’s fondness for a glass of milk that links the two scenes mentioned above, but I’d like to take a closer look at the director’s obsession with feet for example). The rich cast of characters features Winston Churchill (played by Rod Taylor) and Adolf Hitler, and Hitler is crucial to the film’s novel plot that draws several key Nazis to a Paris cinema where both Pitt and Dreyfuss independently plan to kill them all in a bomb blast or fire (it turns out to be both).
Although Waltz delivers the standout performance, Laurent and Diane Kruger (who plays movie star Bridget von Hammersmark) are also both superb, continuing Tarantino’s long line of fine female roles. And if it isn’t a contradiction in terms, Martin Wuttke also makes an agreeable Hitler. I was less enamoured with the last section of the film, which struggles with the magnitude of the final set piece. It’s a shame, because the theme of film and the role of propaganda was an excellent one. Landa, perhaps unwisely, is also turned into something of a grotesque comic figure. But the film works very well on several levels. There’s Tarantino’s usual self reference, where a scene in an underground bar turns almost into a parody of the three-way shoot-off in Reservoir Dogs. There’s also the clever use of language (the film features more German and French than English) adding much authenticity to an often fantastic series of events. And no review of a Tarantino film can conclude without mention of the soundtrack, which features some effective Ennio Morriconie-ish background music and an incongruous, although very effective, use of David Bowie’s Cat People.
As for Rodriguez, I found Shorts a failed attempt at something for children. This is an exhausting film featuring a gang of kids who find a magic stone, resulting on a series of wishes come true that include walking crocodiles and two-headed party guests. It was all too much for me, although I was overruled by my 11-year old film critic. So it does appear to work for its intended audience.
He shrank back still further, darting furtive glances in my direction. Then, while I stood there trembling, not knowing what else to say, he half opened his mouth.
He emitted from it a gurgling sound similar to those uttered by the strange men on this planet to express satisfaction or fear. There in front of me, without moving his lips, while my heart went numb with horror, Professor Antelle gave vent to a long-drawn howl.
Pierre Boulle’s Monkey Planet is the 1963 novel that was later famously filmed as Planet of the Apes. I was lucky to get hold of the 1966 Penguin paperback, the artwork quite chilling and predating the later editions that suffered a title change and were usually adorned with images from the series of films that were released between 1968 and 1973. Boulle’s novel makes an interesting read; comparisons with the films are obviously unavoidable but it differs enough to remain interesting in its own right.
Monkey Planet uses a framing device for its story, where a pair of space travellers called Jinn and Phyllis find a interstellar message in a bottle. The bottle contains a transcript by a French journalist called Ulysse Mérou who describes his journey across the galaxy with two scientists. Landing on a distant planet which they name Soror, they discover an Earth-like world inhabited by primitive, mute humans. Mérou is initially attracted to a female, who he names Nova, although they are soon disturbed by the humans being hunted by seemingly intelligent apes. One of his companions, Levain, is killed in the attack and Mérou finds himself captive in a world populated by talking gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans who dispute his claims to be an intelligent being. He is caged and made to mate with Nova before befriending two chimpanzee scientists Zira and Cornelius and eventually reasoning with his captors and winning his freedom, although he also learns that his other fellow traveller Professor Antelle has degenerated into a savage and has been placed in a zoo.
Mérou is asked to visit the excavation of an ancient city where an intact human speaking doll is uncovered. Further investigations lead him to realise that Soror was once like Earth, but over the course of thousands of years the apes rose to become the dominant species – although not actually advancing any further that their human predecessors. He also learns that Nova has given birth to his son, a seemingly advanced human, and these events lead Cornelius and Zira to engineer his escape back to Earth, along with Nova and the child. The journey at light speed means he returns to Earth at a point thousands of years after he originally left. Upon his return he is greeted by intelligent apes. Like Soror (Latin for sister), Earth has succumbed to the same evolutionary process…
The novel ends with the closing of the framing story where Jinn and Phyllis are also revealed to be intelligent apes, and they dismiss Mérou’s account as fiction.
Oddly, Boulle’s ending for Monkey Planet, where Mérou returns to a hideously altered Earth, owes more in common to Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes than it does to Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 original. Whilst the image of Charlton Heston (Taylor) finding the ruin of The Statue of Liberty is an iconic one, Boulle’s ending actually works best for me (which is odd, as Burton’s finale was fudged and ineffective). Boulle’s twist is quick and terrifying, and is somehow more convincing than Taylor’s predicament; whilst Taylor is angry with humanity Mérou’s mute shock seems to hit hardest. It is an ending in keeping with the novel, where humanity literally loses its voice.
Many of Boulle’s themes surfaced throughout the Apes franchise as it rolled on through four film sequels, further novelisations, a Marvel comic, a live action and a cartoon tv series. For example the master/servant relationship slowly being turned around, which is a theme of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. There’s also the class system of the three species of ape, personified by the military gorillas, the sceptical orangutan Dr Zaius and the kindly and affectionate Zira and Cornelius.
Pierre Boulle is best known for Planet of the Apes, although he also wrote Bridge over the River Kwai and apparently gave the shortest acceptance speech ever for it at the 1957 Oscars (“Merci”). He also wrote a film sequel called Planet of Men, although it was turned down and it is unclear how much it resembles the dark and depressing Beneath The Planet of the Apes which became the second film in the series. Planet of Men suggests something similar to the third film, Escape From the Planet of the Apes, where Zira and Cornelius return to 1970s Earth. And it is the birth of their child that sets off the paradox of events…
I am pleased to confirm that Damon Albarn has done it again. The latest from Gorillaz, Plastic Beach, is yet another outstanding album, perhaps even more creative than 2005’s Demon Days. It features the usual Gorillaz traits, namely Albarn’s canny knack for an infuriatingly catchy tune. This is perhaps best personified in On Melancholy Hill, a song deceptively simple at first but one that’s possibly the best he’s ever written. The album, although featuring several collaborations, is very much Albarn’s and caps the rap element of the band somewhat – although the introductory track featuring Snoop Dogg is very good indeed.
Although Plastic Beach features a very varied array of guest artists, almost all of the collaborations are successful. The only sore point for me is Glitter Freeze, a track featuring Mark E. Smith. Beginning with his where’s North from ‘ere? the song is little more than a Mark E. Smith parody, or a parody of the self parody that he’s become. It didn’t really work for me. Much better is Some Kind of Nature, where Albarn shares vocals with Lou Reed to deliver one of the album’s many standout tracks. Also excellent is the addictive Stylo which features Mos Def and Bobby Womack.
Female vocalists also make their mark on Plastic Beach. Little Dragon features on two memorable tracks, Empire Ants and To Binge. Mick Jones and Paul Simenon also turn up on the title song, and the style reminds of Albarn’s earlier work The Good The Bad and The Queen. All in all Plastic Beach proves how far Albarn’s come since Parklife, a shore on the other side of the world in fact and one of the joys in modern music is keeping an eye on both his development and that of his pal Mr Coxon.
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